RAPPER’S DELIGHT |15 years ago | May 10, 1991 | Amy Finch compared De La Soul’s first and second albums.

“Two years ago, three guys from Long Island calling themselves De La Soul released an album. 3 Feet High and Rising (Tommy Boy) went on to make a million bodies sway and critics’ hearts go pitter-patter. Someone pronounced it the ‘Sgt. Pepper of rap,’ and for once overstatement fit nicely. 3 Feet High was eclecticism gone haywire, an endless string of funny, exuberant grooves and dada poetics (remember ‘Potholes in My Lawn’?) virtually devoid of sour-hearted boasting, snarling, and one-upmanship. It actually seemed shameful to call the record rap, since to define is to limit.

“The cuts came wrapped in a goofy game-show narrative that made you feel you were watching something too. You felt the band were lovable softies with an irrepressible ache to grind people’s notions about rap into the dirt. Which they did quite literally: an early video found them taking off and burying gold chains, fancy sneakers, and assorted gear that typically signal rap status....

“Indeed, De La Soul Is Dead is yet another triumphant effort to ditch preconceptions. But whereas the earlier record set about squelching notions about rap in general, De La Soul Is Dead wants you to know that De La Soul refuse to be nailed down. Side by side, the two records are like those Monet series paintings that depict a single scene in varying degrees of shading. The narrative thread is still there (in the form of a ‘read-along’ book), as is the band’s trademark silliness (witness ‘Bitties in the BK Lounge’ — nobody can toss around insults more hilariously than these guys).”

GENDER BENDER |20 years ago | May 13, 1986 | Neil Miller found that new notions of kin were replacing the nuclear family.

“These days, the post–World War II nuclear family, with its husband, wife, 2.3 children, station wagon, and dog, is more faithfully rendered in TV reruns than in real life. Soaring divorce rates have destroyed one of the traditional family’s primary attributes — the promise of security and permanence. The breaking down of gender roles — a man is no longer indispensable as the breadwinner, and a woman is no longer the only family member considered capable of cooking dinner and raising the kids — has had a weakening effect as well. According to recent estimates, 20 percent of all households with children under 18 are headed by single women.

“Out of the wreckage of the nuclear family, new concepts of what constitutes a family and what makes for secure and loving bonding are arising. Mother, father, and children, united by law and the immutable ties of blood, are no longer the essential elements of a family. Under the new definitions, any configuration of individuals that offers nurturing and caring can qualify.

“Even the definition of a ‘nontraditional’ or an ‘alternative’ family is becoming more fluid, no longer restricted to situations where a single mother is raising her biological child. It is becoming more and more acceptable for men to parent, even on their own.”

What Should Never Be On this Saturday afternoon, the legions of the School of Rock (Boston branch) were pretty much indistinguishable from the real Led Zeppelin, who were themselves teenagers when they formed in the late ’60s.

Drifting French filmmaker Claire Denis has acknowledged that a host of sources inspired L’intrus|The Intruder (January 25–February 9 at the MFA), the tale of a sickly, reclusive Frenchman, Louis Trebor (Michel Subor), who after paying hard cash and buying a new heart sails for the South Seas, vaguely in search of a lost illegitimate son.

Gorillaz at the Apollo There were puppets, singing and dancing middle schoolers, a gospel choir, a 14-piece string section from Juilliard, a who’s who of guests, including Neneh Cherry, De La Soul, Ike Turner, and a lollipop-sucking Shaun Ryder. But no Jamie Hewlett animations?!

Beyond the White Stripes There’s a blues and old-school R&B resurgence rumbling in the indie-music underground, and it goes well beyond the icky thump of the White Stripes.

Redemption rock The idea of fall and redemption is thousands of years old, and it’s laced into the new Godsmack album, where singer Sully Erna’s lyrics spin a tale of rock-and-roll excess, its emotional strain, and if not outright salvation, at least the promise of it.

MERCY AND SAL DIMASI | March 13, 2013 When it comes to showing a modicum of mercy to some of those convicted of federal crimes, Barack Obama is shaping up to have the worst track record of any president in recent memory.

NEXT, MARRIAGE EQUALITY | March 05, 2013 On March 27 and 28, the US Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in two cases that could essentially put America on the road to full marriage equality.

THUS SPAKE MARKEY | February 26, 2013 Last week, Congressman Ed Markey inadvertently injected some daring political thinking and a touch of historical imagination into the race to fill the US Senate seat vacated by John Kerry's appointment as secretary of state.

DRONES: 10 THOUGHTS | February 20, 2013 Foreign drone attacks are almost (but not quite yet) as American as apple pie.